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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27401083">No Memories Remain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion/pseuds/bookscorpion'>bookscorpion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dementia, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, POV Vesemir (The Witcher), Podfic Welcome, Vesemir Whump, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:36:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27401083</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion/pseuds/bookscorpion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Standing among the shadows, Vesemir remembers what has slipped his mind.</i><br/>Vesemir is left only with memories. And then, even those start to fade.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Witcher Rarepair Discord Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No Memories Remain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>

</p><p>Vesemir wakes up at his usual early hour, long before the sun rises. He dresses in his armour, although what the day will bring are repairs and not battle. He is sure he can rope Eskel into helping him, and Geralt. Lambert, that remains to be seen. But maybe Lambert has made porridge. He often does, these days, while they are all together during the winter. Vesemir's feet carry him down the stairs, surefooted even with his mind elsewhere.</p><p>The hearth is cold, the kitchen empty. </p><p>There is no one in the hall. Only shadows and cobwebs. </p><p>Standing among the shadows, Vesemir remembers what has slipped his mind. Everyone is dead. There is no one left but him. </p><p>One by one, they had stopped coming back. Eskel had been the last one, after bringing the news of Lambert's and Geralt's deaths. He had tried to get Vesemir to leave Kaer Morhen but Vesemir had refused. If he had left, it would have meant accepting the deaths, and he wasn't ready to do that. He understood Ciri moving on, leaving the Continent after Geralt's death. She was young. The world had much to offer, and he had encouraged her to go and look for it. </p><p>And then Eskel had not come back one winter. </p><p>Vesemir had left the keep one last time, and had found Eskel's grave in Oxenfurt. Shani had tried to offer him a home, and he had refused that as well. He had ridden back to the only home he had ever known, and hadn't left again.</p><p>The keep is crumbling around him, more stones falling every day. Vesemir works hard to stem the tide of decay, but it is never enough. When he is finished in one corner, another repair has started falling to pieces already. Nevermind all the repairs he never gets around to. The holes in the wall, the collapsed armoury, the roof.</p><p>But he cannot, will not let go.</p><p>

</p><p>Vesemir wakes up at his usual hour, while it is still dark outside and gets dressed, ready for a day full of training and exercise. It is quiet in the keep, and he frowns. Surely <i>someone</i> should be awake by now.</p><p>He stops in front of the door leading out into the corridor. It has a piece of paper nailed to it, in Vesemir's own hand. The writing is shaky, and Vesemir's hand shakes equally as he tears the paper down.</p><p>
  <i>Everyone is dead. You keep forgetting this, old man. There's no good way to say it, so I just say it. If you've forgotten everything, it's all written in the book on your dresser.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>You finished patching up the eastern wall yesterday. You should get to work on the roof.</i>
</p><p>Vesemir crumples up the paper and throws it across the room. How can he keep forgetting this? How can he forget that they are all dead? </p><p>How can he betray them like that, and do it over and over again?</p><p>He starts leaving himself more notes, as things start to slip his mind more and more. Sometimes, he finds himself in front of blocked corridors he thinks should be open. He finds himself calling out to people that are not there, thinking they are just in the next room. He finds himself spending more and more time in the past, and coming back to the present hurts. </p><p>But he takes no comfort in the past either. Vesemir doesn't want to forget what happened. </p><p>The notes start to pile up just like the repairs to, and he can't keep up with either. </p><p>He forgets to eat, he forgets to go to bed. Sometimes, he just collapses while he's working because he hasn't eaten or had anything to drink for hours, maybe days. Even his witcher's body starts to show the strain and doesn't forgive the neglect. </p><p>It forgets, but it doesn't forgive.</p><p>He stops reading the notes. It's too painful, and more often than not he doesn't remember to write them. The old ones just litter tables and floors, ignored and unnoticed. </p><p>And Vesemir forgets. And keeps forgetting.</p><p>

</p><p>Vesemir wakes up long before his usual hour, to a howling storm. He decides to get up and check if everything is alright. Kaer Morhen will survive that storm like many others, but what has woken Vesemir was the crash of a falling stone, and now there is another.</p><p>There is no one in the hall. There are no horses in the stable. The gate is open. </p><p>Vesemir is scared. He cannot fathom what has happened, where everyone is. But it must have been bad. This is no weather to be outside the keep. He has to find them. </p><p>He takes a torch and heads out into the storm. Leaning into the wind, he calls out names. The wind steals them from his lips. It steals his warmth, too. Every step is harder than the last, knee deep in snow drifts. Snow clings to his clothes, paints them white. Frost clings to his face, his own breath freezing on his lips.</p><p>Vesemir doesn't stop. He has to find them. </p><p>The wind covers his tracks, blowing them away as soon as he leaves them. It covers the whole landscape in swirling, featureless white. It covers Vesemir's body in a warm blanket where he has fallen.</p><p>Vesemir goes to sleep and doesn't wake.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So that one wrote itself, basically. I had it all in my mind the minute I had the conversation that prompted this (thanks, Witcher Rarepair Server).</p><p>I'm sorry. Feel free to yell at me in the comments.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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